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Summary

The Annual Editionsseries is designed to provide convenient, inexpensive access to a wide range of current articles from some of the most respected magazines, newspapers, and journals published today. Annual Editionsare updated on a regular basis through a continuous monitoring of over 300 periodical sources. The articles selected are authored by prominent scholars, researchers, and commentators writing for a general audience. Annual Editionsvolumes have a number of organizational features designed to make them especially valuable for classroom use: a general introduction; an annotated table of contents; a topic guide; an annotated listing of supporting World Wide Web sites; Learning Outcomesand a brief overview at the beginning of each unit; and a Critical Thinkingsection at the end of each article. Each volume also offers an online Instructor's Resource Guidewith testing materials. Using Annual Editions in the Classroomis a general guide that provides a number of interesting and functional ideas for using Annual Editionsreaders in the classroom. Visit www.mhhe.com/annualeditions for more details.

Table of Contents

UNIT 1: Introduction

Unit Overview

1. Five Things We Need to Know about Technological Change, Neil Postman, New Tech `98 Conference, March 27, 1998.

Postman suggests that computer technology is too important to be left entirely to the technologists. "Embedded in every technology," he says, "is a powerful idea. . . ."

2. The Social Century: 100 Years of Talking, Watching, Reading, and Writing in America,Derek Thompson, The Atlantic, July 26, 2012 (online)

In 1912, communicating was simple; you talked, you wrote a letter, that was likely it. But by 2012, we have experienced a revolution in how we communicate. And this impacts how we do everything else.

3. It's a Flat World, After All, Tom Friedman, New York Times Magazine, April 3, 2005

"Globalization has collapsed time and distance and raised the notion that someone anywhere on earth can do your job, more cheaply. Can Americans rise to the challenge of this leveled playing field?"

UNIT 2: The Economy

Unit Overview

4. How Google Dominates Us, James Gleick, The New York Review of Books, August 18, 2011

"In barely a decade Google has made itself a global brand bigger than Coca-Cola or GE: it has created more wealth faster than any company in history." How has its corporate motto, "Don't be evil," fared in a company now awash in money?

UNIT 3: Work and the Workplace

"What would it be like to work from home, whilst also being in the office? Only one way to find out: Reporter joins forces with a "telepresence robot" to test limits of remote working. Yes there are problems, but it's not a washout."

Not all that long ago, "nearly everyone agreed that people would be working less once computers and other kinds of automatic machinery became widespread." Instead those of us who are working are working more. Why?

UNIT 4: Social Media and Participation

12. Small Change: Why the Revolution Will Not Be Tweeted, Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker, October 4, 2010

"The Facebook page of the Save Darfur Coalition has 1,282,339 members, who have donated an average of nine cents apiece." Real change requires more than social media, argues this well-known New Yorker writer.

13. Relationships, Community, and Identity in the New Virtual Society, Arnold Brown, The Futurist, March/April, 2011

"Facilitating and managing relationships online is projected to become close to a billion-dollar industry in the United States in 2011." Providing services to commercialized communities "will be a great growth industry."

UNIT 5: Privacy and Security

The recent Stuxnet virus, perhaps sabotage directed at Iran's machinery to enrich uranium, shows that industrial machines are vulnerable to attack. "Unfortunately," says the author, "the electrical power grid is easier to break into than any nuclear enrichment facility."

UNIT 6: Public Policy and Law

"Your computer, your phone, and your other digital devices hold vast amounts of personal information about you and your family. This is sensitive data that's worth protecting from prying eyes—including those of the government." These are your rights.

23. The Yin and Yang of Copyright and Technology, By Randal C. Picker , Communications of the ACM,vol. 5, no. 1

"Examining the recurring conflicts between copyright and technology from piano rolls to domain-name filtering."

24. The Online Copyright War: The Day The Internet Hit Back At Big Media, Dominic Rushe, the Guardian, April 18, 2012 (online)

"As the demise of the SOPA anti-piracy act showed, established arguments for protecting the rights of content creators are almost impossible to apply to a digital world "

25. Can Online Piracy Be Stopped by Laws?, Paula Samuelson, Communications of the ACM, vol. 55, no. 7, July 2012

"[Hollywood] glamorizes [pirates] who attack ships by depicting them as romantic heroes who have great adventures and engage in swashbuckling fun. Yet, it demonizes fans who download music and movies as pernicious evildoers who are, in its view, destroying this vital part of the U.S. economy." Hollywood pushed SOPA to criminalize digital piracy. Will it work? Who is the hero of this story?

While the 2011 U.S. America Invents Act makes major changes to U.S. patent law, it also represents compromise between the competing interests of the software and the biotechnology industries. Each field views patents from a different competitive landscape. This raises questions about the viability of the patent system as it currently stands.

UNIT 7: International Issues and Perspectives

28. Law and Disorder, By Samuel Greengard , Communications of the ACM, vol. 55, no. 1

"International law has always been a murky and Byzantine area. However, the Internet and digital technology have raised the stakes, the risks, and the challenges."

29. Internet Censorship Listed: How Does Each Country Compare?,The Guardian, April 16, 2012 (online)

"Censorship of Internet content can take many forms and ranges from governments blocking the dissemination of political opinion to blacklisting pornographic and pirate websites. . . Where is the internet the most open? Where is it the most restricted?"

In China "Internet traffic is examined with a thoroughness and ruthlessness that is almost admirable in its scope. The term "Great Firewall" is appropriate and descriptive—and also banned by the censors."

IBM's Watson recently defeated Jeopardy!'s two most successful contestants. Was this just (!) engineering or did Watson's triumph represent a leap forward in language understanding and machine learning?